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News Jan 11

After being closed for 5 days because of mild weather, the Rideau Canal skateway has reopened.

A 7.2 km stretch will open today at 11 am, between the Laurier Bridge and the Hartwells Locks.

This is the longest stretch of the canal that’s been opened the season began.

Last season, the canal was open for 35 days between January 5 and February 21.

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A man has been found guilty of dangerous driving and criminal negligence causing death.

It was June 18th 2017, when Chris Galletta and three teenage girls fled a confrontation at a popular swimming hole at the former quarry on Jinkinson Road outside Stittsville.

During a high speed drive to flee the confrontation the girls in the car pleaded with Galletta to slow down.

Testimony at his trial, in the Citizen this morning, revealed he was scared for his life.

Galletta pulled out at high speed to pass two cars on Fernbank Road when he went onto the shoulder flipped and slid about 100 feet.

Two girls, Maddie Clement and Michaela Martell were killed. Galletta and Sommer Foley were severely injured.

Sentencing will be held next month.

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Following the most recent death of a 35-year-old women in a clothing donation bin in Toronto two Ottawa councillors tell the Citizen they want to restrict their use in the city.

Riley Brockington tells the paper the bins are dangerous and ugly, and that he wouldn’t be sad to see them go.

But the councillor acknowledges that charities do rely on the donation bins, so he doesn’t want to make an arbitrary decision.

Brockington says he will call for changes to the bylaw surrounding the bins.

Crystal Papineau was the eighth bin death in the last few years across Canada.

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A post office in Prescott was closed temporarily yesterday, after police were alerted of a suspicious package.

Roads in the area were also closed for several hours.

Crews were called to the scene on Centre Street around 12:30 in the afternoon, to assess the package.

Careful examination of the package determined that it contained casting powder for making moulds.

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The province will be picking which 25 potential pot shops will be allowed to apply for retail cannabis licences today.

Those seeking to open a pot shop in the province had from Monday to early afternoon Wednesday to submit an expression of interest.

The government will pick the winners today, and is set to announce the results within 24 hours.

Those selected through the lottery will have five business days to turn in their application along with a six-thousand-dollar non-refundable fee and a 50-thousand-dollar letter of credit.

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Autoworkers from across Ontario are headed to Windsor today to protest across the river from General Motors’ Detroit headquarters.

The rally against the company’s decision to close its plant in Oshawa coincides with an investor update.

They’re set to begin protesting at 11 a-m.

Twenty-six-hundred people stand to lose their jobs when the plant shuts down operations at the end of the year.

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Kingston police say a 21-year-old man was charged this week in a voyeurism case that dates back to December.

They say a woman was in a washroom on the campus of Queen’s University when she saw someone reach under a stall partition.

They say she saw the person using a cell phone to try and record her.

Police say a man was identified and arrested this week, and has been charged with voyeurism.

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Lawyers are raising concerns about delays at the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, which is experiencing a shortage of adjudicators.

The tribunal says it is working to fill vacancies, but there could be delays in mediation and hearings in the meantime.

Human rights lawyers say such delays can prolong conflict and discourage people from coming forward with complaints.

They also say it can make it more difficult to preserve evidence and keep track of witnesses, which can undermine cases that are being heard.

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau faced plenty of blunt questions from people during a town hall last night at the University of Regina.

One man who works at a steel fabrication plant in the city told Trudeau the federal government should not have signed the new trade agreement with Washington because U-S tariffs are hurting Canada’s steel and aluminium industries.

Trudeau said there was too much at stake to walk away given the high volume of trade between the U-S and Canada.

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Hereditary chiefs reached a deal with R-C-M-P to give a natural gas company access to a bridge that had been blocked, but remain — quote — “adamantly opposed” to the pipeline project.

According to the agreement, Chief Na’Moks of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation says Coastal GasLink workers will be allowed across a bridge and the R-C-M-P will also remove a roadblock that was preventing some members of the nation from accessing a nearby healing camp.

Coastal GasLink president Rick Gateman said the company can do its work as a result of yesterday’s agreement.

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The National Energy Board would require the creation of a marine mammal protection program for the Trans Mountain pipeline in a series of draft conditions it has laid out before it considers the project.

Releasing these draft conditions and recommendations is not an indication of the board’s forthcoming recommendation to the federal government to either approve or deny the project.

The Federal Court of Appeal quashed the government’s approval of the project in August, citing the energy board’s failure to examine impacts on the ocean ecosystem.

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Long-term Canadian expats are set to find out today whether a now-repealed 25-year-old law barring them from voting in federal elections was constitutional.

Two Canadians living in the U-S launched the challenge to part of the Canada Elections Act, which said those who lived abroad for more than five years lost their voting rights.

They initially succeeded in court but lost on appeal, prompting the Supreme Court to weigh in.

The Liberal government did away with the ban last month but the court case proceeded.

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Police in Thailand say several countries including Canada and Australia are in talks with the U-N refugee agency to accept a Saudi asylum seeker who fled alleged abuse from her family.

Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun was stopped at a Bangkok airport on Saturday and said her passport was seized.

While barricading herself in an airport hotel room, the 18-year-old launched a social media campaign that drew global attention to her case.

The U-N High Commissioner for Refugees eventually granted her refugee status on Wednesday.

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Investigators are expected to explain how they located a Wisconsin teenager missing for three months alive and took a suspect into custody.

Authorities say 13-year-old Jayme Closs was found yesterday afternoon in the Town of Gordon in Douglas County, Wisconsin.

A suspect was apprehended minutes later and Jayme was taken to a hospital for an evaluation.

Jayme had been missing since October 15th, when police discovered someone had broken into her family’s home, killed her parents and apparently abducted her.

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U-S Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is bringing the Trump administration’s anti-Iran message to Gulf Arab states as he continues a nine-nation tour of the Middle East.

Pompeo travels to Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates today where he’ll be calling for increasing pressure on Iran and pushing for unity among Gulf neighbours still embroiled in a festering dispute with Qatar.

He’ll also be promoting a U-S-backed initiative to form what some call an “Arab NATO” that would bring the region together in a military alliance to counter threats from Iran.

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U-S President Donald Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, will testify publicly before a House committee next month in a hearing that could serve as the opening salvo of a Democratic effort to scrutinize Trump, his conflicts of interest and his ties to Russia.

The House Oversight and Reform Committee announced yesterday that Cohen will appear before the panel February 7th.

Cohen is a pivotal figure in the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller into potential co-ordination between Russia and the Trump campaign.